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This enticing block boasts a raft of hops pundits and a brewery on almost every corner. From where I'm sitting it's emerging as the craft capital.

After a brief siesta at our hotel we headed to the informal eatery Shepherd, on Hannahs Laneway.

The trick was to find it.

This bricked lane is a labyrinth of alleys and hidden-eateries. Luckily, being a Friday night the after work-revellers in nearby bars were happy to point us in the right direction.

Shepherd was great. But the catch of ordering a fresh oysters starter is that the dish can't be beat.

So, while the next courses of eel and octopus were outstanding, you simply don't get any better than a raw oyster in its shell. A culinary lesson therein, methinks.

The more we became accustomed to the wider Cuba Quarter and character of the hidden gems like the laneway and Egmont and Eva streets adjacent to Courtenay Place, the more we liked it.

This place and its niche businesses are Wellington's latest understated bolters.

The laneway is aptly dubbed "Little Portland" for its culinary confluence of bakers, roasters, grinders, brewers, chocolatiers, pizza slingers and soda makers who shape a destination for what was a former industrial quarter.

Flavour profiles were uncovered, with words I'd never associated with chocolate like "crack, winnow, conch and temper".

The chocolatier's Craft Beer Bar was noteworthy because within the nearby precinct there are craft brewers making beer with chocolate notes, peanut butter makers incorporating coffee into their product and said chocolate maker producing chocolate with beer flavours.

It summed up the synergy between them. Staff at each place we ventured suggested visiting other joints in the area. It was a lovely village-like collegiality.

The guided trek included botany as well as birds, and culminated in the sighting of tuatara and a little spotted kiwi.

Our guide said for most of us it was probably the first time we'd seen a kiwi "in the wild". But was it in the wild if it's a gated sanctuary with feed-stations?

Either way, our guide was full of facts on all things flora and fauna. A hot cup of kawakawa tea was poured as we left as a fitting native note to finish.

We were late to our 8.30pm dinner reservation at Rita. And, cue the weekend's highlight.

This historic Aro Valley cottage boasts a quaint single room that diners share elbow to elbow. Guests on your table's east and west flanks become part of the conversation - but we acclimatised quickly.

I'm not sure how to describe the simple but elegant food (in that sense it echoed the premises).

Broadbean pods in light tempura with saffron aoili, thin pork-belly slices atop fennel, ravioli encased runny egg (how do they do that?) and, by far and away my best meal of the weekend, crisp-skin snapper cooked as Tangaroa intended in a leafy-green broth.